These Vicious Masks by Tarun Shanker & Kelly Zekas

These Vicious Masks by Tarun Shanker & Kelly Zekas

England, 1882. Evelyn is bored with society and its expectations. So when her beloved sister, Rose, mysteriously vanishes, she ignores her parents and travels to London to find her, accompanied by the dashing Mr. Kent. But they’re not the only ones looking for Rose. The reclusive, young gentleman Sebastian Braddock is also searching for her, claiming that both sisters have special healing powers. Evelyn is convinced that Sebastian must be mad, until she discovers that his strange tales of extraordinary people are true—and that her sister is in graver danger than she feared.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Sex worker shaming
  • Slut-shaming
  • Attempted rape, on-page
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood depiction
  • Chronic illness
  • Physical injury
  • Human medical experimentation
  • Hospital
  • Death of a brother reounted
  • Death of a mother mentioned
  • Death of a father mentioned
  • Mugging with a knife
  • Gun violence
  • Murder
  • Attempted murder
  • Kidnapping
  • Disappearance of a sibling
  • Fire
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft edited by Tess Sharpe & Jessica Spotswood

Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft edited by Tess Sharpe & Jessica Spotswood

Toil and Trouble: 15 Tales of Women and Witchcraft by Jessica Spotswood and Tess Sharpe book cover

A young adult fiction anthology of 15 stories featuring contemporary, historical, and futuristic stories featuring witchy heroines who are diverse in race, class, sexuality, religion, geography, and era.

From good witches to bad witches, to witches who are a bit of both, this is an anthology of diverse witchy tales from a collection of diverse, feminist authors. The collective strength of women working together—magically or mundanely–has long frightened society, to the point that women’s rights are challenged, legislated against, and denied all over the world. Toil & Trouble delves deep into the truly diverse mythology of witchcraft from many cultures and feminist points of view, to create modern and unique tales of witchery that have yet to be explored.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Abusive relationship
  • Substance addiction
  • Panic attacks
  • Drug use recounted
  • Alcohol consumption recounted
  • Childbirth
  • Dead bodies
  • Hospitalisation recounted
  • Death of an aunt
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a friend
  • Fire
  • Bullying
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The Mermaid, the Witch and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

The Mermaid, the Witch & the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Aboard the pirate ship Dove, Flora the girl takes on the identity of Florian the man to earn the respect and protection of the crew. For Flora, former starving urchin, the brutal life of a pirate is about survival: don’t trust, don’t stick out, and don’t feel. But on this voyage, as the pirates prepare to sell their unsuspecting passengers into slavery, Flora is drawn to the Lady Evelyn Hasegawa, who is en route to a dreaded arranged marriage with her own casket in tow. Flora doesn’t expect to be taken under Evelyn’s wing, and Evelyn doesn’t expect to find such a deep bond with the pirate Florian.

Soon the unlikely pair set in motion a wild escape that will free a captured mermaid (coveted for her blood, which causes men to have visions and lose memories) and involve the mysterious Pirate Supreme, an opportunistic witch, and the all-encompassing Sea itself.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia
  • Slavery & human trafficking
  • Misogyny
  • Rape & sexual assault mentioned
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Forced arranged marriage
  • Alcoholism & alcohol abuse
  • Starvation
  • Blood depiction & physical injury
  • Emesis
  • Murder
  • Graphic torture (on-page)
  • Whipping
  • Hanging mentioned
  • Imprisonment
  • Poverty themes
  • Homelessness
  • War & colonialism themes
  • Animal abuse & death

Song of the Current by Sarah Tolcser

Song of the Current by Sarah Tolcser

Caroline Oresteia is destined for the river. For generations, her family has been called by the river god, who has guided their wherries on countless voyages throughout the Riverlands. At seventeen, Caro has spent years listening to the water, ready to meet her fate. But the river god hasn’t spoken her name yet—and if he hasn’t by now, there’s a chance he never will.

Caro decides to take her future into her own hands when her father is arrested for refusing to transport a mysterious crate. By agreeing to deliver it in exchange for his release, Caro finds herself caught in a web of politics and lies, with dangerous pirates after the cargo—an arrogant courier with a secret—and without the river god to help her. With so much at stake, Caro must choose between the life she always wanted and the one she never could have imagined for herself.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Classism
  • Slut-shaming
  • Attempted sexual assault (nonconsensual kiss, on-page & discussed)
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Arranged & nonconsensual marriages discussed
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Graphic physical injuries
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a brother
  • Death of a mother & father (off-page)
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Torture (off-page)
  • Gun violence
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Fire
  • Drowning
  • Shipwreck
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • War themes, including regicide, rebellion, coup & colonialism

Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend

Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend

Morrigan Crow may have defeated her deadly curse, passed the dangerous trials and joined the mystical Wundrous Society, but her journey into Nevermoor has only just begun. And she is fast learning that not all magic is used for good.

Morrigan Crow has been invited to join the prestigious Wundrous Society, a place that promised her friendship, protection and belonging for life. She’s hoping for an education full of wunder, imagination and discovery – but all the Society want to teach her is how evil Wundersmiths are. And someone is blackmailing Morrigan’s unit, turning her last few loyal friends against her. Has Morrigan escaped from being the cursed child of Wintersea only to become the most hated figure in Nevermoor? Worst of all, people have started to go missing. The fantastical city of Nevermoor, once a place of magic and safety, is now riddled with fear and suspicion…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emotional & verbal child abuse
  • Emesis
  • Blackmail
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Disappearance of a child
  • Animal cruelty
  • Bullying

One Tiny Lie by K.A. Tucker

One Tiny Lie by K.A. Tucker

Livie has always been the stable one of the two Cleary sisters, handling her parents’ tragic death and Kacey’s self-destructive phase with strength and maturity. But underneath that exterior is a little girl hanging onto the last words her father ever spoke to her. “Make me proud,” he had said. She promised she would…and she’s done her best over the past seven years with every choice, with every word, with every action.

Livie walks into Princeton with a solid plan, and she’s dead set on delivering on it: Rock her classes, set herself up for medical school, and meet a good, respectable guy that she’s going to someday marry. What isn’t part of her plan are Jell-O shots, a lovable, party animal roommate she can’t say ‘no’ to, and Ashton, the gorgeous captain … Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child abuse
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother & father in a car accident recounted

Be the Girl by K.A. Tucker

Be the Girl by K.A. Tucker

Almost sixteen-year-old Aria Jones is starting over. New postal code, new last name, new rules. But she doesn’t mind, because it means she can leave her painful regrets behind. In the bustling town of Eastmonte, she can become someone else. Someone better.

With the Hartford family living next door, it seems she will succeed. Sure, Cassie Hartford may be the epitome of social awkwardness thanks to her autism, but she also offers an innocent and sincere friendship that Aria learns to appreciate. And Cassie’s older brother, Emmett—a popular Junior A hockey player with a bright future—well … Aria wishes that friendship could lead to something more. If he didn’t already have a girlfriend, maybe it would … Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Cheating
  • Suicide by overdose mentioned
  • Recreational drug use
  • Bullying & cyberbullying

Say You Still Love Me by K.A. Tucker

Say You Still Love Me by K.A. Tucker

Life is a mixed bag for Piper Calloway.

On the one hand, she’s a twenty-nine-year-old VP at her dad’s multibillion-dollar real estate development firm, and living the high single life with her two best friends in a swanky downtown penthouse. On the other hand, she’s considered a pair of sexy legs in a male-dominated world and constantly has to prove her worth. Plus, she’s stuck seeing her narcissistic ex-fiancé—a fellow VP—on the other side of her glass office wall every day.

Things get exponentially more complicated for Piper when she runs into Kyle Miller—the handsome new security guard at Calloway Group Industries, and coincidentally the first love of her life … Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cheating
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use
  • Incarceration

An Echo in the Sorrow by Hailey Turner

An Echo in the Sorrow by Hailey Turner

Patrick Collins has spent years handling cases as a special agent for the Supernatural Operations Agency, even as his secret standing in the preternatural community has changed. He should have confessed to his role as co-leader of the New York City god pack when he and Jonothon de Vere took up the mantle months ago, but he didn’t. Now that split loyalty will cost him at a time when he can least afford it.
 
Outmaneuvered, framed for murder, and targeted by the Dominion Sect, Patrick has to face a past full of lies to regain his freedom. Revealing the truth means he’ll need to give up the life that has defined him. Everything he’s fought to build with his pack is at stake, and losing them isn’t a price Patrick is willing to pay, but some choices aren’t his to make…. Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Graphic physical injury
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Kidnapping
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L Armentrout

From Blood & Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Chosen from birth to usher in a new era, Poppy’s life has never been her own. The life of the Maiden is solitary. Never to be touched. Never to be spoken to. Waiting for the day of her Ascension, she would rather be with the guards, fighting back the evil that took her family, than preparing to be found worthy by the gods. But the choice has never been hers. The entire kingdom’s future rests on Poppy’s shoulders. And when Hawke, a golden-eyed guard honor bound to ensure her Ascension, enters her life, destiny and duty become tangled with desire and need.

Forsaken by the gods and feared by mortals, a fallen kingdom is rising once more, determined to take back what they believe is theirs through violence and vengeance. And as the shadow of those cursed draws closer, the line between what is forbidden and what is right becomes blurred. Poppy is not only on the verge of losing her heart and being found unworthy by the gods, but also her life when every blood-soaked thread that holds her world together begins to unravel.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Disfigurmisia & internalised disfigurmisia
  • Slavery
  • Sexual assault (on-page)
  • Physical, psychological & emotional abuse, including gaslighting
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Relationship between an adult and a teenager (18-year-old)
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Self-harm
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Blood drinking
  • Graphic descriptions of dead bodies
  • Scars
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a child mentioned
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Kidnapping
  • Imprisonment
  • Whipping/flogging
  • War themes
  • Animal death
  • Bullying
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com